Marmie's Musings

  The Lord’s Prayer doesn’t stop with “Forgive us our debts.” We also pray “As we forgive our debtors.”  That begs the question, What exactly is forgiveness?  The context of the Lord’s Prayer helps us formulate a definition. Forgiveness involves canceling a debt or remitting a payment.  Forgiveness doesn’t mean the consequences of our actions will always be removed (e.g., the thief on the cross didn’t get to live just because he was forgiven), nor does it mean we can’t be discerning in our judgments about others.  Forgiveness is not a feeling but a decision to let go of the debt owed us.  Forgiveness means we say no to revenge, trusting that God is the one to avenge (Rom. 12:17–21).  Forgiveness means our sins are no longer counted against us and we no longer count the sins of those who have hurt us. In one sense, we should forgive all those who sin against us. We should not seek their harm. We should pray for them and desire their good.  But in a...

  In a relational sense, I must continually seek restoration and forgiveness. Even though I am in Christ, I still say, do, and think things that are foul, corrupt, and offensive to God.  This is the point of 1 John 1:8–9, which is really just a commentary on the sin offering of Leviticus 4 and 5. If we say we are without sin, we lie and “the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, [God] is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So if I sin as a Christian, I should not fear condemnation-for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1)—but if my conscience is working as it should, I will still feel guilty.  Sin is still displeasing to God. Imagine your son has a paper route. You tell your son, “You must do the paper route. It’s your job, not mine.”  But one day he purposely skips the route to play with his friends after school. You happen to notice a lonely stack of papers waiting to be del...

We need daily bread that we might live. We need daily forgiveness that we might not die.  How have we fallen short of the glory of God? Let us count the ways. With little sleep and pressing responsibilities, you fire a harsh word at your children, “Stop it! You’re driving me crazy!”  Feeling hurt by your wife, you let loose a biting remark, “You’d hate to be helpful, wouldn’t you?”  Imagining yourself all-important and all-knowing, you pout at your parents for setting boundaries in your life.  The apostle James is right: We all stumble in many ways (James 3:2). We need forgiveness every day because we rack up debts every day.  On our best days, our perfect God gets only imperfect obedience and imperfect worship from us. We are hopeless debtors. “But,” you may ask, “I thought when I repented of my sins and asked Jesus into my heart, my sins were forgiven and I was declared right with God, so why do I need to ask for forgiveness?  Aren’t all my sins-past, pre...

"... we are fully determined, as evidence of God’s grace in us, to forgive our neighbors.”  Most of the times that our neighbor offends us, it’s over something that really doesn’t matter much. Our pride has been hurt, or we didn’t get something we would like to have had.  In these cases, we can ask for God’s help, stop and consider how much we have sinned against God, and simply choose to forgive. We may have to go through that process many times before the offense doesn’t bother us anymore, but it’s a simple process. Sometimes, though, because there is true and deep evil in our world, people sin against each other in horrible, devastating ways.  People sometimes use such cruelty against others that it seems it would be wrong to forgive them. We want to see them pay for the evil they have done.  How can we forgive our neighbors in situations like that?  We can only forgive cases of great evil and cruelty when we remember that God is just. He will judge every sin...

Jesus teaches us, in the Lord’s Prayer, to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.”  This is not a bargain. We don’t earn God’s forgiveness by forgiving other people first.  Instead, because God has forgiven us, we want to be like him. We want to please him. So we forgive others.  There are times when people sin against us, and we think, “I can’t possibly let that go. That is too hurtful, too wrong.”  It will help us a great deal if we remember how often and how badly we have sinned against God, and what a great price he was willing to pay so we could be forgiven.  We can never out-forgive God! Adapted Excerpt From: Starr Meade. “Comforting Hearts, Teaching Minds.” 

When you think about it, the request for forgiveness in this part of the Lord’s Prayer has a lot of nerve.  How dare we ask God to forgive us! He has done so much for us already. He has created us, given us life, and provided us with everything we need.  When we rebelled against him, he sent his Son to die in our place.  He has forgiven us and given us his Holy Spirit to live in us. He has given us his Word to guide and comfort us. He has placed us in his church, among his own people, and has promised to return for us.  And still, we sin against him!  Still, when we can’t have things our way, we take it out on others by being unkind to them.  Still, though we know we should take time to pray and read God’s Word, we neglect these things.  Knowingly, in spite of all God’s mercy and patience, we keep on sinning! How dare we ask God to forgive us one more time? Here's why we can dare—“because of Christ’s blood.” Anyone values his own blood, since his life ...